Contact centers may receive and/or originate communications, such as telephone calls, for various purposes. The volume of communications, such as inbound telephone calls, may vary based on the time of day, day of week, and time of year. To handle the anticipated volume of communications, forecasts may be produced and a staff of agents is scheduled accordingly. In order to ensure that agents are always available, the agents may be scheduled for various shifts, and typically the starting times may be staggered so that, for example, not all the agents are scheduled to take their lunch break at the same time. This also allows agents to have rest breaks scheduled at different times. To further provide flexibility in allocating agent resources, part-time as well as full-time agents may be employed.
These and other techniques may be available to a contact center in order to match the available agent resources with the anticipated call volumes. However, regardless of how effective these techniques may be employed, it is possible that at various times there will be a deficiency of agent resources. In some instances, there is a level of advanced knowledge that this will occur. For example, it can be expected that for various reasons, one or more agents may report sick and will be unable to work their scheduled shift, arrive late, or leave early. Or, after agents are scheduled, other circumstances may result in a change to anticipated call volume.
Similarly, both contact center administrators and agents expect, that at various times, events or circumstances will arise that make adherence to a work schedule difficult or impossible. Further, both administrators and agents desire some flexibility in order to accommodate such events, which sometimes can be foreseen in advance. Thus, it is desirable to have mechanisms that afford agents flexibility in their work schedules, and which offer administrators greater flexibility in allocating agent resources. It is further desirable that such mechanisms are easy to administer and facilitate servicing the anticipated communications.